NRL 2021: South Sydney Rabbitohs Season Preview

The South Sydney Rabbitohs only have eyes for one thing heading into the 2021 season: An appearance in the NRL Grand Final.


2020 Wrap

The Rabbitohs began the 2020 NRL season with serious question marks over their premiership chances following the departure of Greg Inglis, Sam Burgess and John Sutton in quick succession. Debate also raged over their relatively small pack and Latrell Mitchell’s transition into the fullback role, but after a slow start the Bunnies found their groove and finished the regular season strongly in sixth place. 

Thanks largely to the scintillating form of Adam Reynolds and Cody Walker, the Rabbitohs posted wins against Newcastle and Parramatta in the finals series before bowing out in the Preliminary Final to the Penrith Panthers, 20-16. 

Predicted Profile

What will the South Sydney Rabbitohs look like and how will they play? We take a stab at profiling their playing style ahead of Round 1.

The Rabbitohs attack clicked into gear in spectacular fashion towards the back end of last season, and in good news for Souths fans, it should only get better with the addition of some key personnel. 

Jai Arrow will join Cameron Murray and a host of fast, mobile hard running forwards well suited to the increased ruck speeds. 

Last season the best attacking teams worked through the middle, forcing defensive lines to retreat and compress before finding space out wide. As a result, the value of big men on the edges who can ball-play and create themselves – think Cronulla’s Wade Graham or Kenny Bromwich for the Storm – has skyrocketed. With both Arrow and Murray presenting genuine ball playing options in the back-row, Souths might look to shift to the edges quickly and often, particularly considering the threats they possess out wide. 

This will allow Walker and Reynolds to play closer to the ruck and target tiring opposition forwards as they did towards the end of last season. Reynolds seems to have found a home at first receiver, and the threat of Walker roaming off the ball will only be magnified by the inclusion of Mitchell’s return from injury at fullback. 

Expect plenty of short side raids from both Walker and Mitchell this season. 

Both men are instinctive attacking players who have proven elite at counting numbers and putting teammates into space. Two running centres in Dane Gagai and Campbell Graham will be sure to attract plenty of attention close to the line, and with try scoring professionals Josh Mansour and Alex Johnston lurking on the paint Souths should not want for points in 2021. 

2021 NRL Notepad

Jason Oliver cracks open his notepad to find a key player, style or stat to keep an eye on this season.

Campbell Graham

He’s still only 21-years old, but Campbell Graham has played 69 games of first-grade footy. The 2021 NRL season shapes as a bit of a breakout season for the South Sydney Rabbitohs centre.

The emergence of Stephen Crichton and Zac Lomax coming into some sparkling form allowed Graham to fly under the radar last season. However, after finally landing himself in the centres for an extended period (19 games), Graham started to display the sort of consistent form he had only flashed throughout the three seasons prior.

Graham scored 13 tries in 2020 – two on the wing and 11 in the centres. His 2.8 tackle breaks per game as a centre is more than the destructive Moses Suli while no player with more than 16 appearances at the position averaged more metres than Graham’s 138.5 metres per game. He’s a very good attacking centre. Although, it is a surprise to see Souths digi suggest he will be paired with Josh Mansour on the right side. Linking Graham’s strength as a ball-carrier up with Alex Johnson to help the left side in yardage sets seems like a no brainer, but Wayne Bennett has gone for a powerful right-side combination instead.

Regardless of which side Graham plays, his defence will be a major focus.

He has a tendency to jam in and come out of the line on the backrower. Graham wasn’t always this far off, but one sequence against the Dragons in Round 12 paints a picture of his defensive struggles throughout the year.

He first flies out at Matthew Dufty and is lucky not to concede more than a few extra metres.

Knowing already that Graham has a tendency to defend tight and come in hard while also seeing him stay involved in the following tackle for too long, Dufty and the Dragons return to his side of the field.

This time, he engages with the opposition back-rower despite his inside defender appearing to have the situation under control. It takes a lovely face-ball to get to him, but Euan Aitken only needs to catch the ball and run through a gaping hole to score.

While an extreme example in this case, it’s part of Graham’s game he needs to work on. Non-centres in the #3 and #4 jerseys didn’t work for the New South Wales Blues last season. Brad Fittler is surely on the hunt for specialists and Graham will be in the conversation if he can improve defensively.

“Heads In” 2021

Oscar Pannifex unpacks a scrum of three key questions ahead of the 2021 NRL season.

Centre-Field Scrum – What’s centre-frame in the Rugby League lens this season?

The absence of GOAT hooker Cameron Smith from Melbourne’s team-list this year sees South Sydney enter the 2021 season with arguably the strongest spine in the NRL. Latrell Mitchell, Cody Walker, Adam Reynolds and Damien Cook form an all-representative play-making combination that will both command respect and demand results this season, after falling painfully short last year.

Latrell. There will be enough spoken and written about him in the coming weeks, so we won’t bang on about it here. We were quietly confident about his chances at fullback last year and, albeit after a slow start, he made us look good with every sweeping backline shift and tip-on pass to his outside men.

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In Mitchell’s absence, it was the combination of attacking duo Reynolds and Walker that saw the Bunnies play deep into the finals last year. 

Reynolds kicking game was consistently elite, but a new-found eagerness to dig into the line and hold up defenders was to the benefit of none more so than Walker, who popped up on both sides of the ruck for great effect in Souths’ run to the prelim.

And while Cook’s running game might not have exploded through a faster ruck area last year like many had predicted, his improved decision making and composure from dummy-half is beginning to make the players around him look better, and more often. 

Right Scrum-Line – Who is feeling the pressure this season? 

It might sound strange to suggest The Master Coach is ever under pressure, but with the roster at his disposal in 2021 Wayne Bennett will be expected to leave South Sydney at the end of this season with their 22nd premiership. Three consecutive preliminary final appearances is an outstanding effort in and of itself, but Souths have left plenty on the table in the past few years and will be looking to clean out the house in their fourth attempt. 

Bennett’s biggest challenge will be getting his forward pack rotation right. In particular, how best to use tireless back-rower Cameron Murray. 

Murray’s distribution around the ruck is invaluable, as is his agility and play-the-ball speeds when playing at lock. But in his limited time on the edges last season, it was often Murray’s elite line-running that created the space for Walker to score:

Murray is also a brilliant defender – he’s shown it at lock, backrow and even in the centres. His decision making and one-on-one tackle technique is superb and he puts immense pressure on opposition play-makers when defending on the edge. Arrow is more than capable of filling the workhorse role in the middle, and while it at first seemed a bad idea, Murray to an edge might have more merit to it than we first thought. 

Preseason Updates: Murray locked in for #13

Left Scrum-Line – My left-field thought for the season

Watch out for Keaon Koloamatangi. 

His barnstorming carries carved up opposition middles last season in limited minutes off the bench, and we’ll be watching him closely as he enters his second season in the NRL. 

Koloamatangi capitalised on a few clutch moments last year – he got Reynolds in range for a match winning field-goal back in Round 14 against the Cowboys, and he set Cook and Murray up for a scything try in Week 1 of the finals against Newcastle. 

As he finds his feet in first-grade, look for Koloamatangi to spend some time on the edges where he played most of his junior footy. His tackle-busting carries and quick play-the-balls could be lethal if used in a Villiame Kikau-style role outside Walker on Souths’ left edge. 

Peak, Pass, Pit

Oscar and Jason give their predicted peak for the Raiders in 2021 along with a pass mark and worst-case scenario.

Peak

Premiers: Even putting the bias aside, a Premiership win is a realistic peak for the Rabbitohs in 2021. Souths have recruited well and their attacking structures are perfectly suited to the modern game. Not to mention the motivation of sending Bennett out a winner.  ~ OP

Premiers: They’re my tip for the premiership. Their first-choice 17 is among the best in the NRL and we saw what Wayne Bennett got out of Queensland when it all became about man-management. Now imagine how much the players will lift knowing they have the opportunity to send out arguably the greatest coach of all-time with another premiership… ~ JO

Pass

Grand Final: A Grand Final appearance is the pass mark for me this season, considering how close South Sydney have come in the last three years. This squad is too strong and too deep to not make the finals, and from there they should have the experience to make it into the big dance. ~ OP

Prelim: It’s a painful thought for the South Sydney faithful, but another preliminary final – win or lose – is the minimum expectation in 2021. This group has been there and done it all before so know what it takes and is more than capable of getting there again. ~ JO

Pit

Prelim loss: Nothing would spell failure for Souths’ 2021 campaign like another preliminary final knockout. The club is better equipped to navigate injuries and representative duties than in previous years and they need to make it count before this premiership window closes. ~ OP

Semi-final shocker: Anything can happen in finals football. Depending on where some teams are placed, Week 1 of the finals may not be easy either. A straight sets finals flop is the worst-case scenario for Souths this season. ~ JO


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